“People are condemned on the bare testimony — no common sense”
How to stop the transformation of Russia into a society of executioners and victims, advocates torture
Defendants in high-profile criminal cases often claim to torture during the investigation. One of the clearest examples was the case of “Network” (an organization banned in Russia), whose members were accused of organizing a terrorist community, but their lawyers and relatives have repeatedly said that a testimony was given under torture. The head of the law firm “Magnat” Sergey Kolosovskiy, who has worked in the criminal investigation, believes that the widespread use of torture resulting in the first place, lowering the requirements to provide the investigators evidence.
“The notorious beating by the police — it is the soft option”
Usually talking about torture in the police, but believe me, the police — the most innocuous part of the state’s torture machine, which also includes Russia’s Investigative Committee and the FSB, the Federal penitentiary service, and other “linear” systems.
I’ll tell you that to solve the problem of torture in Russia can President or the state Duma with the stroke of a pen. But first you need to define the concepts.
Torture in the inquisitorial process has always existed. Can you remember the time of Peter, European medieval Inquisition, the 30-ies in the USSR. It was not the Golden age in the history of humanity and the magic of the state in which people would not be tortured. Yes, in a civilized society this problem is eliminated and reduced to the level statpogreshnosti. In modern Russian torture has acquired the character of a national catastrophe, and we need to do something.
At first glance it seems that all civilized people condemn torture. But look how fancy it is expressed public opinion in individual cases.
The same people can scream that we need to execute all of the executioners in uniform, and he will call to castrate a pedophile with a rusty pair of scissors.
So before a blanket condemnation, you need to try to calmly understand and understand, why in Russia today torture has become so widespread.
But first about what torture is. The notorious beating by the police, sorry, the soft light option. Much more terrible things to people doing the Investigating Committee or our most humane court. That for someone a secret that people were often sent to the detention center to achieve the desired testimony? Just someone who thinks that most torture bondage and fear is much worse than vulgar proverbial beating. But this torture is not only arrested, but also his relatives, elderly parents, children.
We have recently completed the case Investigation, the Committee sought from my client’s confession. People were in need of complex neurosurgical operations, and the investigator SK forbade them to do, and people just die from the pain. Mom arrested could not stand all this and died. And the investigators and the court did not even let the son carry out his mother’s last journey. Do you think this is not torture? The case ended relatively well, but the mother did not return. And the man does not want to stir up anything — so here without names.
But, please, not to be unfounded, a specific example. On 13 February in Chelyabinsk at the request of the investigator of the Investigative Committee arrested the Builder Michael Azamatov. The house remained the aged father, who suffered three heart attacks and a stroke. Every week to him called an ambulance but he refuses hospitalization — waiting for the son. On 27 February the regional court has left Michael in custody — despite the Express prohibition to arrest individuals indicted for crimes in the sphere of entrepreneurship. How many still survive the father? And Michael go to the employees of different departments have to offer and take a few officials and go home. Do you think this is not torture? Any man is easier to give to cut off his hand than to see this mockery of a father.
And you, those who scream, “Share!”, “The oligarchs to jail!”, “Officials in jail!”, “Thieves in jail” (we are talking only about entrepreneurs — pocket thieves Russian people traditionally sympathetic to), how are you different from a stupid COP-Pesnica who batters a rubber stick addict so he told someone he bought a dose?
Why modern Russian torture acquired such a huge magnitude? Because changed the system of proof, standards of proof.
Remember, when last time before this in Russia so massively tortured people? That’s right, when the attorney General of the country was Vyshinsky, who proclaimed the recognition of the Queen of evidence.
You look at what today converted the investigation and trial? People are condemned on bare testimony. No logic, no forensics, no deduction. But just no basic common sense. There are indications, or confessions of the accused, or the testimony of a witness who has concluded the pre-judicial agreement, — guilty! That is the reason we turn into a society of executioners and victims.
“The investigation and the court perceive testimony as self-sufficient evidence”
Those of us who worked in the police in the 90s, too much of what he was accused. But then there was such mass outrage that is now thriving. Because there was a different standard of proof. Because with very few exceptions the business could not be in court on some bare testimony. For example, most of the operskoy life, I worked in the group for the fight against burglary. When theft was considered open? Only when criminals are not just admitted, but also showed where the stolen things, and we found this stuff. That was the objective.
In the book “the Antikiller” (but please, do not identify with the same film) 90 is described honestly. And here I am. Investigator accuses Koreneva Opera that he achieved recognition of the murderer under torture that Koren argues: “a corpse in the place which he showed, too, I buried?”
We had a similar case of group of room thieves decided to get rid of accomplice to get his share. Hired killer, the master of sports on judo, the son of a KGB Colonel, by the way. The killer along with the team leader providing quality control inspection works, and the next victim left the city ostensibly on the barbecue, the killer strangled a tramp, the corpse was stripped naked and buried. A year and a half later, we split the first one of the appartment, who knew about the circumstances of the murder from the words of the elder. Then he confessed and handed over the team leader, told everything in detail, but pretended he did not remember the way to the place where he buried the corpse. Then took the killer, he ‘accidentally’ saw, as a customer we have in the office of appetizing eats from the jar, homemade dumplings, too, understood everything and told.
Now this would be enough — there is the testimony of the witness, the testimony of the customer, the testimony of the contractor. Then — no. If we hadn’t found the body, in three days all would be released and no more never proved nothing to. And we three days did not sleep, dug the ground figuratively and then literally, and sighed with relief that the crime was solved only when out of the ground pulled the rotting corpse of the former apartment of the thief. And now all three of them, including the witness, were condemned and without a body. Because there is a recognition — the Queen of evidence.
Another case is for the New year from the school kidnapped a nine year old boy. Suspicion fell on ex-driver father, who had recently retired from the scandal and just yesterday bought “Volga” (in 1992, on the status of this machine was equal to the current “Mercedes”), and his friend. The driver had admitted that stole the child out of revenge, then killed him, and drowned corpse in the hole.
Now no one would bother and it would be sent to court. There is recognition. There is a motive. And the fact that the corpse is not found — so over carried away, on lake Shartash’s a very strong current, especially in December. And people would be condemned. Then I didn’t like that the details don’t add up, I again while the user was looking for divers, talked to the driver and he said that the money was stolen in another place. I called off the emergency, or how it’s called. As it turned out, rightly so. The corpse of a boy was found in the spring in another place, and a few years later it became known that the murder was committed by a completely different person by order of the mistress of the father, which decided that the child interferes with her lead man of the family.
These examples could go on, but the point is, I think, clear. If in the 90s of the testimony was the only certain source of evidence, but now the investigation and the court treats them as completely self-contained proof.
Why torture people, seeking any evidence — for themselves, for their neighbor and for another that the head of the municipality. Investigators from Sherlock Holmes and Pavel Pavlovich Znamensky has become a commonplace blunt scribes with a penchant for sadism, and the operatives of detective — in their improvised bullies.
“The presence of a lawyer when self-incrimination — minus, not a plus”
You can stop it very easy. You need to make investigative testimony has lost its meaning in court. And then no one will be to dislodge them. Yes, it will remain in the police and the Investigative Committee, a stupid sadist, but if the system does not give them work, they will die and law enforcement will return the professionalism.
Now the standard system of simple evidence from the detainee through violence or intimidation beat out the necessary indications. The investigator records them in the presence of a lawyer and all. It’s done, no wonder the man has been tortured.
Even if he is in court from them will refuse, the court will put the basis for a conviction of the testimony given during the investigation.
But the vicious circle is broken very simple. Since the adoption in 2001 of the criminal procedure code there is a norm: to inadmissible evidence includes the testimony of a suspect or accused given during pretrial proceedings in a criminal case in the absence of defense counsel and confirmed them in court (paragraph 1 part 2 article 75 of the CPC). Therefore, when the confessions of the accused is always present lawyer, the court refers to this fact as a guarantee of authenticity embossed indications.
Lawyer may not know what and how frightened client operatives an hour ago and why he made the decision something to confess. Either the client just insists on his position, the lawyer may not argue. And, of course, the problem of the notorious “pocket” lawyers should not be discounted, although much is now being done to overcome this phenomenon.
It turns out that the presence of a lawyer when self-incrimination — minus, not a plus. And corrected it is very simple — given me the language to delete the reference to the inadmissibility only those indications which were given in the absence of counsel. That is simply to cut the phrase “in the absence of counsel,” to remove from the law the only three extra words. To establish that inadmissible any testimony of the accused given during the investigation and confirmed them in court. And to torture the accused in Russia will cease. At least on such a scale. Just be no need. The same idea is under discussion Penza things “Network” was expressed by the famous Moscow lawyer Stalin Gurevich. This is an entirely sensible point I just repeat.
Ideally, of course, the rule of the inadmissibility of evidence given during the investigation and not confirmed in court, well be extended to the questioning of witnesses. But this is scientific fiction, like the gardens on Mars.
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